Addressing Fianna Fáil's 80th anniversary celebration at the weekend, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern placed some emphasis on the State's current prosperity and his party's responsibility to create, from this prosperity, a just society for every citizen.
Mr Ahern might well pay heed to points made by the director of the Arts Council, Mary Cloake, when she raised some fundamental questions about the nature of the kind of society we aspire to - and suggested the arts should have a role in the current national partnership talks.
Ms Cloake couched her argument in terms that the Taoiseach, and other policy makers, should be able to relate to. "If we are to be about not just an economy but a society too, then we need the arts to give us perspective and to be a mirror on a vibrant country. By putting the arts at the heart of society, I believe they can help to lead us to a better place."
The search for that "better place" cannot simply be about the more predictable benefits of economic prosperity - "more money, more holidays, more GDP, more houses and more work", as Ms Cloake put it. The balance provided by both the making of art, and the enjoyment of art, was perhaps never more necessary than in the current climate of obsession with the pursuit of affluence, and pressure heaped upon pressure in the lives of many households when it comes to making the mortgage, commuting and child rearing.
The appeal to introduce the arts into the social partnership process is, therefore, a very valid and timely interjection. During the recent period of phenomenal growth in arts activity, and in prudent State support for this sector, the arts and artists have been notably absent from the formation of these agreements. Not since the initial Programme for National Recovery have they featured in any way in the deliberations.
Perhaps the problem - as the cultural commentator John Tusa once described it - is that they "fail every measurable objective set by economists and politicians". The Arts Council director, in fact, put down a very concrete measure of their worth when she argued that the arts can "help safeguard our heritage, improve quality of life and can also be good for business, making Ireland more attractive as a tourist destination and giving employment". The "decent society", with the arts playing a central role, that Mary Cloake envisages as the future inheritance of our more diverse population sounds like the same "just society" that the Taoiseach believes his party must nurture.